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Just out of curiosity, why do you want to switch? Electrical engineering is a pretty good field, and probably interesting as well, no?
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Jun 11, 2014 17:57
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Doghouse posted:Sorry I didn't specify - I'm doing an online 2 year masters, and have one year left. So I guess I'm panicking a bit because I don't have the luxury of having a few years to land an internship, and all the summer internship listings for this year seem to be drying up. But yeah I know i just need practice, I was just looking for specific methods that work. Thanks for all the input. My method for getting an internship when I was in a similar situation was basically spray and pray. Send an application or email with resume and maybe a cover letter to every single company in your area even if they don't seem to be looking for interns or no longer have listings up. If you can find emails for specific engineering managers instead of recruiting types send it to them. Especially this late in the season you're totally playing a numbers game and don't have the option to be picky or worry about annoying people or get discouraged by constant rejections. You've gotta find that one group that had an intern cancel or would take an intern but hadn't been actively looking and that takes time and a wide search. I think I sent out somewhere north of 50 emails and applications and managed to get a hit that worked out. As far as interviewing methods go, its the same as any other programming interview, read the OP, read Cracking the Coding interview, bone up on the usual coding interview algorithms and data structures, spend a massive amount of time practicing til they're second nature. If you do get a hit this late you aren't going to want to waste it.
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Jun 11, 2014 18:02
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Chin up D-Tron, the company I work for just hired an MS EE for an entry level dev position. It's definitely do-able.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:08
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Don't forget that non tech firms also hire developers and interns. Manufacturers, Banks, and Utility companies all use developers. It is also pretty late to be looking for a summer internship, I would be looking at internships for fall at this point. Firms with a steady internship program normally have their interns lined up 1-3 months in advance.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:16
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Doghouse posted:I'm having a hard time getting an internship. I've had three interviews but no dice. I think it has to do with the technical stuff in the interview. I've only been in school for about a year, and I've learned a lot, but I think I have gotten used to doing assignments "open book" and since it's online, I don't really talk to peers that much. As such, I can do the programming assignments well and am getting good grades. But if interviewers ask me to explain a concept or to code on the whiteboard, I sometimes flub it - I'll describe something in an unclear way or blank on basic syntax. Does anyone have any advice on how to get better at these things? Should i just find problems and try coding them on a piece of paper?
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Jun 11, 2014 19:28
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I know this has been asked a lot in this (probably has anyway) but does anyone have some recent programming interview test questions they know off the top of their heads? I've got an interview Tuesday and I'm looking for insight on what to expect. It's a games company if that helps.
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Jun 11, 2014 19:32
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I'd recommend asking in the Game Jobs megathread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3415662
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Jun 11, 2014 19:49
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Malcolm XML posted:If you havent signed look into a competent employment lawyer. They may be able to get you out of the 3 month period.
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Jun 11, 2014 20:59
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I've posted in this thread for probably years looking to get into a developer role coming from the finance industry. I accepted a job offer today for a position that's fairly simple front end web development and it pays surprisingly well. It's not ideal because the development is based on a back end built in house that looks like a terrible mess, but the important part is that I got my foot in the door for a career in software dev. I'm pretty happy and just wanted to share that there are opportunities to get started even without a CS degree or professional dev experience.
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Jun 11, 2014 22:40
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Doghouse posted:Just out of curiosity, why do you want to switch? Electrical engineering is a pretty good field, and probably interesting as well, no? I agree that electrical engineering is an interesting field, I did get a Master's in it after all! More specifically I am looking to get out of Power engineering, and the two paths I am considering are an EE job more in line with what I studied (which I know how to do) or preferably a software development job (which I'm less sure how to do so looking for some goon wisdom). The whole software idea has come from talking with my friends in the field, seems like it is right up my alley and something I would really enjoy doing. If I could get a do-over I think I would get a CS degree instead. I also like the options for flexible schedules and telecommuting that are possible in the software industry (gently caress commuting in LA). Tres Burritos posted:Chin up D-Tron, the company I work for just hired an MS EE for an entry level dev position. It's definitely do-able. Thanks - I do have an EE friend who took pretty much the exact same coursework as me and currently works as a web dev, so I know it can be done! His company does have a training program though and he said they hired him "to see if they could turn a random engineer into a web developer." Not betting I'll have the same luck so I reckon the best thing to do is take some classes to gain some programming knowledge. Just not sure if that will be enough or if it will be necessary to get a full-blown degree.
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Jun 11, 2014 22:49
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Hi folks. I'm in the UK and doing a computer science degree through the open university. At the moment i'm focusing on java and teaching myself a little ruby. I also spent 90 hours in the Shadowrun Returns editior but gave up when it came to lighting. I'm slightly concerned because i'm 28 now and due to finish the degree when i'm 31. Would employers consider entering into the field this late a negative?
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Jun 11, 2014 23:19
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The Heckler posted:Hi folks. I'm in the UK and doing a computer science degree through the open university. At the moment i'm focusing on java and teaching myself a little ruby. I also spent 90 hours in the Shadowrun Returns editior but gave up when it came to lighting. I'm slightly concerned because i'm 28 now and due to finish the degree when i'm 31. Would employers consider entering into the field this late a negative? All they care about is whether you can program.
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Jun 11, 2014 23:36
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hayden. posted:I've posted in this thread for probably years looking to get into a developer role coming from the finance industry. I accepted a job offer today for a position that's fairly simple front end web development and it pays surprisingly well. It's not ideal because the development is based on a back end built in house that looks like a terrible mess, but the important part is that I got my foot in the door for a career in software dev. I'm pretty happy and just wanted to share that there are opportunities to get started even without a CS degree or professional dev experience. 
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Jun 11, 2014 23:51
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Bloomberg seem to be more desperate on recruiting than normal, from what I hear quite a number of their developers upped and left together to a certain unnamed competitor  Bloomberg recruiter posted:The Trading Systems Group at Bloomberg is hosting an exclusive hiring event the week of June 23rd. They are seeking innovative Software Engineers, Team Leads and Architects with an aptitude for low latency, high frequency systems to deliver the next generation of smart trading systems. MrMoo fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 01:22
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MrMoo posted:Bloomberg seem to be more desperate on recruiting than normal, from what I hear quite a number of their developers upped and left together to a certain unnamed competitor I had a terrible recruiting experience with Bloomberg last year. I'd hate to see what they're like when they're desperate. [edit] Recruiter contacted me on SO Careers and said he had a senior dev/junior architect role in .NET languages for me. I said "Great!" and set up an appointment. The guy called me 30 minutes late and didn't apologize or offer an explanation. After talking to him for a few seconds, it was clear that he hadn't actually read my resume and didn't have a role in mind for me. The call ended with him sending me an email with some jobs I could apply to on their site. The email contained a bunch of links to junior and mid-level Ruby, Java, and C++ jobs. I responded and let him know that I wasn't interested in applying for any of those jobs or working for Bloomberg at all based on how the recruiting was going. He emailed me a few days later to ask if I'd applied for those awesome jobs he sent. On the plus side, I got to send him a smug, bitchy email about professionalism. New Yorp New Yorp fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Jun 12, 2014 |
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Jun 12, 2014 02:21
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Tunga posted:Yeah, I'm pretty sure I could but also I'd rather be able to get a reference from them in future. What's the chance that they're still around when you need it? What's the number of leads that you have that have already left that can give you the recommendation instead?
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Jun 12, 2014 02:45
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The Heckler posted:Hi folks. I'm in the UK and doing a computer science degree through the open university. At the moment i'm focusing on java and teaching myself a little ruby. I also spent 90 hours in the Shadowrun Returns editior but gave up when it came to lighting. I'm slightly concerned because i'm 28 now and due to finish the degree when i'm 31. Would employers consider entering into the field this late a negative? Anecdotal, but a friend who graduated at 30 was swimming in job offers way before he graduated. I'd assume that getting a freshly graduated junior developer at 30 would be preferable to getting him at just over 20, since people in their 30s generally are way more reliable than people in their 20s.
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Jun 12, 2014 11:46
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Geisladisk posted:Anecdotal, but a friend who graduated at 30 was swimming in job offers way before he graduated. I'd assume that getting a freshly graduated junior developer at 30 would be preferable to getting him at just over 20, since people in their 30s generally are way more reliable than people in their 20s. As a counterpoint to that, there was a pretty strong consensus in the thread a couple of pages ago that someone's 8 month gap in employment was a big red flag.
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Jun 12, 2014 14:11
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Newf posted:As a counterpoint to that, there was a pretty strong consensus in the thread a couple of pages ago that someone's 8 month gap in employment was a big red flag.
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Jun 12, 2014 14:22
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Sure, but people are a lot more likely to have some unaccountable period of time at thirty than at twenty.
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Jun 12, 2014 16:27
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Newf posted:Sure, but people are a lot more likely to have some unaccountable period of time at thirty than at twenty. That's a mighty big assumption. And even if it's true, so what? At 30, there's over a decade of working that such a gap could fall under and would likely be several years ago and not worth much at all. The cat's also completing a degree. This matters more.
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Jun 12, 2014 17:51
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Thanks alot for your advice. I've been consistently employed for the last ten years. I work full time as a production manager for an electronics company and do OU part time, although i actually did the first year full time on top of work which left me a hollow shell of a man. Naturally the first day i had a break from study my friend asked me to "make a website with your uni stuff"...
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Jun 12, 2014 18:47
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I have a question regarding offer letters. If a company gets bought before you start, but you've already signed the offer letter stating that you would start on a certain date, is it still binding?
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Jun 13, 2014 20:06
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unpurposed posted:I have a question regarding offer letters. If a company gets bought before you start, but you've already signed the offer letter stating that you would start on a certain date, is it still binding? In the United States? You can quit whenever you want. What aspect of it would be binding?
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Jun 13, 2014 20:15
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He might mean on their part.
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Jun 13, 2014 23:57
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unpurposed posted:I have a question regarding offer letters. If a company gets bought before you start, but you've already signed the offer letter stating that you would start on a certain date, is it still binding? Neither party has any obligation. Offer letters are usually given before stuff like background checks, drug screens, etc. They wouldn't give offer letters before these checks if it was binding in any way.
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Jun 14, 2014 00:55
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At-will employment goes both ways. You can quit whenever you want, they can fire you whenever you want, they can rescind the offer if they want, and you can walk away from it if you want. There may be ill will from the other party if one of you walks away at the signed-offer stage, but nobody owes anyone anything. That having been said, unless they tell you they're rescinding the offer, you should assume you still have a job. kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Jun 14, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 01:45
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Neo_Reloaded posted:I just had a phone interview where the hiring manager said it wasn't a good fit after a total of 1 technical question had been asked. This generated an amount of discussion a while back so I thought I'd share that I believe I just stumbled upon the source for the question itself. From a 2004 Joel Spolski article (emphasis mine): quote:Learn C Before Graduating Haha.
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Jun 14, 2014 03:05
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Newf posted:This generated an amount of discussion a while back so I thought I'd share that I believe I just stumbled upon the source for the question itself. Maybe. But this is just the canonical implementation of strcpy, and in general "implement x from the standard library" is a pretty common type of interview question. I'd recommend learning as much as possible about your language's core libraries, both to interview better and to be a better programmer in general. Unfortunately glibc and libstdc++ are very rough reading, but there are some more straightforward implementations out there.
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Jun 14, 2014 03:18
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Joel isn't exactly a source of gospel.
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Jun 15, 2014 21:20
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I am almost certain that that's a joke, since ML is one of the "'modern' languages" that he sneers at and it's only a year younger than C.
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Jun 15, 2014 21:47
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Gazpacho posted:Joel isn't exactly a source of gospel. Yes but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Knowing C as a lingua Franca really shouldn't be objectionable despite what blowhard says it.
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Jun 16, 2014 01:36
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Welp, it looks like I got an offer for an internship! I'm really excited. He sent me an email saying they were offering me the position, with a few details and wanting to know when I could start. That was late thursday afternoon. It said when they heard back from me, they would send an official offer letter. I emailed back that night in the affirmative and I haven't heard back yet. How long should it take for them to send it? Are they going to email it to me, or send it by snail mail? Should I be doing anything else right now? This is all new to me.
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Jun 16, 2014 15:30
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Doghouse posted:Welp, it looks like I got an offer for an internship! I'm really excited. If you haven't heard back by mid-week, just send a quick followup. Offer letters usually go through an HR/legal department and can take some time to get drafted. New Yorp New Yorp fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Jun 16, 2014 |
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Jun 16, 2014 15:38
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Doghouse posted:Welp, it looks like I got an offer for an internship! I'm really excited. For Google, I was sent and signed my offer letter electronically, exactly nine days after I was told informally that they had been approved to extend me an offer. All I did in the meantime was chat a bit with my recruiter about the details of my compensation and so on. Congrats! You were looking for a last minute summer placement, right? How soon do you start?
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Jun 16, 2014 15:39
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Can someone look over my resume and tell me what obvious glaring errors are on there? I'm looking to get a simple customer support job with DigitalOcean working remotely from Austin. I've removed names and numbers because my last name is really goofy and unique, but the relevant information is there. Primarily, I'm not sure if the praise that my project received from various culture sites is worth keeping. On one hand, I'm super proud of the site, but on the other hand, it doesn't necessarily lend credibility to it. Or does it? I don't know. I'm also unsure if my explanation for why I don't have a bachelor's degree needs more explanation or not.
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Jun 16, 2014 18:30
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quote:Porktrack.com: a website that, when supplied with a user’s birthdate, calculates their date of conception
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Jun 16, 2014 19:13
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a slime posted:For Google, I was sent and signed my offer letter electronically, exactly nine days after I was told informally that they had been approved to extend me an offer. All I did in the meantime was chat a bit with my recruiter about the details of my compensation and so on. Congrats! You were looking for a last minute summer placement, right? How soon do you start? Looks like I posted prematurely again, they just sent it. Thanks! Yes, I was looking for a last minute summer placement. They want me to start next week. As I am currently in a summer semester, I'm going to ask if I can work less than 40 hours a week; even 35 would help me. Is there a better way to do this than just saying that I'm in school full time and it would help to be able to balance both?
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Jun 16, 2014 19:17
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Cicero posted:This gave me a good chuckle, but I dunno if that's the kind of thing you want on a resume that might be screened by humorless HR drones. I put the site on there because although it's purpose is ridiculous, it did involve actual use of technologies relevant to the position. I mean, I built the whole thing on the DigitalOcean platform. It's also the most major project I've been a part of, much to my chagrin. A bunch of local developers that I talked to said it shouldn't be an issue because "this is Austin, man."
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Jun 16, 2014 19:37
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Cicero posted:This gave me a good chuckle, but I dunno if that's the kind of thing you want on a resume that might be screened by humorless HR drones. Maybe I'm just getting jaded and picky as I grow older but frankly I wouldn't want to work for a company that would exclude me based on something so trivial.
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Jun 17, 2014 05:31
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